


Dream No Small Dreams

by twocrabs



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Archery, But I'm also not going to pretend this is anything beyond what it is, Canon compliant but only in the loosest sense, Dreams, Flashbacks, I'm not in denial, M/M, Memories, Misery Loves Company, Self-Indulgent, revisionism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-08 15:11:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18625783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twocrabs/pseuds/twocrabs
Summary: Nothing is resolved. There is no closure. The world is cruel and unfair and exhausting.And so, Eliot dreams of Quentin.[Or: a series of small, sad self-indulgences.]





	1. A Visitor

**Author's Note:**

> This began as a way to torture both myself and a dear friend. 
> 
> I hope this hurts in just the right way.

1\. A Visitor 

Eliot sits in the Whitespire throne room, which is strange, because the current regime has not allowed him back there in nearly six months. Margo isn’t there, which is also strange, but neither, he realizes, is anyone else. Other strange things include the fact that he’s dressed in his clothes from Earth, the complete and eerie stillness of the world outside the windows, and the sudden but welcome lack of pain in his abdomen. 

And then Quentin is there—standing in the doorway dressed like a Fillorian peasant—which is by far the strangest thing, because Quentin is dead. 

But then, no, it’s not Q. Eliot realizes this as the peasant walks towards him. This can’t be Q; the hair is too light, eyes too green, face too young. 

No, this man is younger than Q was when they met. This  _ boy _ , Eliot is certain, like he is certain of his own name, is absolutely no older than eighteen. Which is, also, very strange. Because the last time Eliot had seen him, he had been 43 and carrying their eldest granddaughter around on his shoulders. 

“ _ Teddy? _ ” Eliot sighs, standing from the throne, nearly falling down the stairs. 

“Hey, Pops,” he says, smiling, nervous. “Where’s—?”

But before he can finish the question, Eliot’s arms are around him, and he’s—god he’s so much taller than he remembers. Taller than Q, taller than Ari— _where did he get it?_ —but his small surprised laugh sounds like the best of both of them, and his shirt smells like their house—a hand-me-down, his, he thinks—and he’s hugging Eliot back, in that awkward teenaged way, with the double-handed pats on the back, and—

“Where’s Dad?” Teddy asks, mumbled, half his face pressed into Eliot’s neck. He already sounds wary, like he knows something is wrong. 

When Eliot finally peels himself away from him—his hands still on Teddy’s arms, and then gently on either side of his face, and then on his own face, wiping at his eyes—he has already forgotten the question. 

Teddy chuckles again and rolls his eyes like he had done so often, when Eliot had been distracted by the mosaic, or a book, or making dinner, and he had to tell him something a few times over before it stuck. Eliot had blamed it on age, then, and not being able to take ginkgo supplements, or do sudoku. 

“Pops, where is Dad?” He—he gesticulates like Q, his hands conducting a small orchestra in the space between them—and he looks Eliot in the eye, sincere and concerned. “I….forgot to tell him something.” 

“What is it?” Eliot’s stomach turns. “What’s wrong?” He’s there again, in their little front garden, and his heart is pounding in his chest as he watches Teddy walk off, Q barely keeping upright next to him. 

“No, it’s—” Teddy shakes his head and smiles, reassuring. “I just wanna talk to him for a second.” 

And then Eliot blinks. 

And then—oh god. And then Teddy isn’t taller than Q anymore. Instead, he barely comes up to Eliot’s knee, and he’s crying, huge, snotty, terrible crocodile tears and—

_ He’s there again _ . That month or so after Ari. When Q couldn’t get out of bed and Teddy had cried for both of them around the clock. Eliot had tried everything he could think of to calm him down, but during the day all he wanted was his father, catatonic and barely holding on himself—and at night he screamed for his mother, dead and buried so soon and so fast, and Eliot had never felt so hopeless and helpless and totally, completely alone.

He drops to his knees and hugs his fragile little Teddy again. His tiny body shakes as he sobs, and Eliot’s shirt is soaked where Teddy’s nose is pressed against it. And he screams, long and drawn out and wretched, right into Eliot’s ear, “ _ Daddy! _ ”

“No, no, hey, shhhh” Eliot pleads, holding him tighter and tighter until he worries he’ll crush him. “It’s okay, Teddy, please, I’m sorry,” Eliot swallows, his stomach in knots and his heart aching. “—I’m so sorry—he loved you  _ so much _ —I couldn’t—it’s okay, it’s gonna be okay, I—” 

And then Eliot twists in his sleep, and the pain in his gut wakes him up. 

 


	2. The Sharps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He breathes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my dear friend: you're really horny for archery aren't you 
> 
> me: yes but that's not the point of this one

2\. The Sharps

Eliot is in a field, early in the morning, with low, dense fog up to his knees. A couple dozen yards ahead of him stands a wood and canvas target, pocked with holes. He inhales deeply, setting his feet in the soft ground, and reaches over his shoulder to pull an arrow from its quiver. He exhales, notching it into his bow.

He blinks.

Someone is standing in front of the target, their heart level with the bullseye. From where he stands, beyond the blurring fog, he cannot make out the person’s face. They say something, in a distorted, distant voice, that Eliot cannot understand.

Inhale; he lifts the bow, sighting the center of the target over the head of his arrow. The target and its sacrifice never move, but the voice begins to crystalize. It’s closer, realer, hauntingly familiar. He squints, blinks, crosses his eyes, but the face in his sightline remains unclear.

Exhale; he lifts his elbow and draws the bowstring back, touching his thumb to the corner of his mouth. The voice says a single word— _sighs_ it, so close to his ear he can feel a cold breath on the back of his neck. In the same fraction of a second, the figure in front of the target sharpens, drops its hands, lifts its chin, and makes eye contact with him across the marshy field.

“ _Eliot—_ ” Quentin says, like he had once, eons ago.

But Eliot has already loosed the arrow.


	3. A Retelling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Don't come back."

3\. A Retelling. 

In his dreams, Eliot doesn’t bring the gun to Blackspire. Or he does and it jams. Or he does, but he’s 5% more of a coward than he already is, and can’t bring himself to shoot. Either way it never goes off, the monster stays bound, magic is restored, and Quentin is stuck down there, forever.

In his dreams, Eliot steals away to the Muntjack, always under the cover of night, and cracks the door to fortress with the keys he still has. There he finds Q, wrung out and lonely, and they hide in the dungeon from the monster, distracted for a while. When he visits, Eliot brings food and supplies and information. But Q doesn’t get hungry or tired in this place on the bottom of the world—nor do the concerns of the outside, save for the happiness of his friends, seem to bother him much. It takes a few years, but after realizing that he is aging but Q is not, Eliot brings fewer and fewer things on the boat down with him, until it’s just himself.

In his dreams, Eliot tells him the truth, after a while. Sitting on the little bedroll on the floor of the dungeon, he tells him that once he was afraid of a life together, but a life without him now is so, so much scarier. He tells him he’s trying to be brave, that Q showed him how to, but that it sucks. It sucks to be courageous, to put up a strong front, to exist in the world and _be_ things—dependable, a leader, a husband, a father, a friend. In his dreams, he confesses to Quentin, that if he were just another 5% more cowardly, he’d never leave the basement of Blackspire again.

He tells him this, and then, because Q was born and will die braver, he asks Eliot to stop visiting. _I can’t see you old again_ , he says. _Not without me_ . And, _You deserve to be happy_ . And, _Take care of everyone, please_ . And, _I love you El._ But, _Don’t come back._

Quentin says it again— _Don’t come back_ —as Eliot kisses him, urgent and mournful, on his mouth, his jaw, his neck. _Don’t come back_ —and Eliot slips Q’s ratty sweatshirt off his shoulders, and his t-shirt over his head. As Eliot grabs him by the hips and pulls him into his lap. _Don’t come back_ —as Q clings to the collar of Eliot’s shirt with one hand, the other flush against his stomach, sliding, pawing, fumbling fruitlessly with the buttons of Eliot’s pants. _Don’t—_ but Eliot’s mouth is on his, and his hand is tight at the back of Q’s neck. _Don’t_ —and Eliot hitches himself up onto his knees, Q’s legs wrapped around his back, lowering him down onto the dusty blanket. Finally, with Q laying under him, half naked and desperate for skin, Eliot peels his off his own jacket and shirt and pants, and shivers in the dungeon’s chill.  

_Don’t co_ —as Q kicks off his jeans, and Eliot licks into Q’s mouth, and presses his fingers into Q’s hips. — _Come b_ —with Q’s legs around his waist, and teeth in his bottom lip. — _Back—_ Moaning, both of them. _—don’t_ —Eliot, his _hands—_

_Come back—_ as Eliot presses into him, and Q, gasping, arches off the floor.

In his dreams, they have that night together, the monster miraculously distracted until dawn. In his dreams, Quentin keeps the monster calm in the morning, too, while Eliot boards the Muntjack, and flies off without a chance at a goodbye. In his dreams, Eliot is brave enough to listen to Q, and never returns to Blackspire, and dies old, satisfied, and mostly happy. In his dreams, in those terrible, uncomplicated versions of life, there is no resolution. But when is there?


	4. An Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

4\. An Interlude

Phantom hands. 

All around is dark and silent but there are. Phantom hands, hot and fleeting and too many to count. Hands on his neck and cheeks and the back of his head. Hands grabbing and pressing and searing into him. Hands curled around his shoulders and splayed across his chest. Hands on his wrists and ankles, stomach and thighs, the small of his back. Warm ghosting hands in his own palms, fingers between his; hands on his hips, his ass, up his spine and between his shoulder blades. 

Hands—touching him in a familiar, comforting, aching kind of way, until there is no him left. Only patches of skin under hands, blind and deaf and empty in the spaces between. 

And then. Under his jaw, dragging forward to his chin. A thumb on his bottom lip, pressing in past his teeth, toying with his tongue, before. Gone, leaving him open-mouthed and wanting. 

Frantic hands, tense, unsure and barely making contact before disappearing. A sense of self-consciousness? Restraint? Hands unsteady and hesitant, all knuckles and nails and the knocking of cool wrist bones against his chest—palms withheld. Clumsy hands, needing and wanting and afraid to ask, and afraid to take. Hands curled around his ears, thumbs in his sideburns, rubbing his cheeks. And then. Hands in his hair, fists full it, tugging gently, pulling, pulling closer. Hands that know now, what they want. Hands on either side of his neck; hands sure and firm on his chest; hands light and careful over his scar. So careful he can barely feel them, though he knows they’re there. Hands, scared, almost. Like before. Slow and reverent and terrified to touch and this.  _ This _ . 

This is what shakes him. Not….awake. But into being. 

Still in the darkness, still so far, soundless. But no longer formless, and no longer alone. 

He can see the hands, hovering, over his stomach, fingertips barely touching, when he inhales. Under them, the terrible, gnarled scar that Eliot took as reward for surviving. Attached to the scar is the rest of him, reclining, nude, propped up on his elbows. And attached to the hands are wrists, and arms, and then the rest of Quentin, kneeling over him, looking down, trembling.

Eliot reaches a hand up towards his face, but Quentin turns away. He doesn’t look up from his hands, but his mouth twists, and his brows come together in an awful, pained sort of way. Eliot can see the muscles in his jaw working, as Quentin closes his eyes and shakes his head slightly, and takes in a deep, sharp breath. 

“Does it hurt?” and Q’s voice is low and clear and  _ everywhere _ . 

“No—yes—not,” he breathes, swallows. “Not right now. Sometimes.” His hand stagnates in the space between them. He wants to turn Q’s face towards him, wants to look at him. 

“I’m sorry,” Q croaks, inhaling again, curling further into himself, his hands unmoving. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Don’t—” Eliot places a hand is on his shoulder, even though Q flinches when he does it. “I didn’t. Look I didn’t take care of it right. I didn’t rest like I was supposed to, I didn’t—I didn’t listen to Lipson, it’s okay it’s not….” 

“I’m sorry,” Q says again, rougher, his hands still floating, untouching. “I’m sorry, El, I’m so sorry, I couldn’t—

“Hey,” and Eliot presses his hand over Q’s and onto his own stomach. “Feel that?  _ Look at me _ —do you feel that?” 

And finally Quentin looks at him, hurt and fear and longing on his face. A face Eliot never wanted to see, and never would. 

Eliot sits up, two hands on Quentin’s, and places his nose against his temple.  

“I lived,” Eliot breathes. Q curls his fingers, slightly, pressing into the skin underneath them, sending a shiver up Eliot’s spine. “I lived,” he says again, trying to smile. “I lived because of this. I lived because of you.” He squeezes Q’s knuckles, as Q turns his face towards him. “This— _ you _ —this saved me.” 

Quentin kisses him, then, one hand curled against Eliot’s chest, the other still flat and firm on the scar. And Eliot, lips parting, leaning forward, reaches up, for the familiarity of Q’s warm cheek and neck. 

But Q isn’t there.  

Just his own hands, grasping at nothing, waving in the darkness. Just the feeling of Q’s hands on him, heavy and hot, but fading. Just his lips, wet from Q’s tongue. 

“But I lived,” he whispers, to no one.

And then he is awake, his eyes open, and there are pinpricks of light in the darkness—fireflies, or candles, or stars—and the only hands on him are his own. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This whole series is just me getting my frustrations out and is probably going nowhere BUT! I am working on something a little more long form. So stay tuned, I suppose. Thanks very much for reading so far, guys!


End file.
